Silent House (44 page)

“Ohh,” said Nilgün. “A fez!”

“The tourists were wearing them at the belly-dancing show last night, but I have no idea how it got into my pocket. How did it even fit in there?”

“Should I give you your breakfast right away?” I said.

“Yes, Recep,” they said.

Knowing they would want to get back to Istanbul before the mob of vendors and the heavy traffic, I went down to the kitchen, put the bread on the stove, and boiled some eggs. I was bringing the tray up when Ismail said, “Maybe you know, Recep. You spend your life in this kitchen, but maybe you know more than anybody. More than me, for sure!”

I thought for a second. “I know as much as you do, Ismail!” I said. I told him I had seen the boy smoking. Ismail looked surprised,
as if he had been betrayed. Then, sounding more hopeful, he said, “Where would he go? Someday he’ll turn up again. And with all that’s been going on around here every day, so many people dying, they will forget about this.” I didn’t answer but went upstairs.

“They’re up, Madam.” I said. “They’re waiting for you downstairs. Come, why don’t you go down and have breakfast with them on their last day.”

“I told you to call them!” she said. “I have things to say. I don’t want them falling for your lies.”

I went downstairs without saying a word. I was setting the table. Faruk and Nilgün were laughing together. Metin, who was now up, too, was sitting silently. When I went down to the kitchen, Ismail said, “Hasan hasn’t been home for two nights. Did you know?”

“I didn’t know,” I said. “Was he out on the night it rained, too?”

“Out,” he said. “The roof was leaking, the water was carrying everything in the house away. We sat there the whole night and waited, but he never came.”

“When the rain started he must have ducked inside somewhere and stayed there,” I said.

He eyed me carefully, saying, “And you’re sure he didn’t come here?”

“He never came here, Ismail!” I said, even though the gas that someone had left on did cross my mind. I took the tea, toast, and eggs upstairs.

“Do you want milk, Nilgün Hanim?”

“No,” she said.

I wish I had just boiled the milk and put it in front of her. I went down to the kitchen, “Come on, Ismail,” I said. “Why don’t you drink your tea?” I put a breakfast service in front of him and cut some bread. I took Madam’s tray upstairs.

“Why aren’t they coming up?” said Madam. “Didn’t you tell them that I asked for them?”

“I told them, Madam … They’re having their breakfast now. But before they go, they’ll come up and kiss your hand, of course.”

She lifted her head from the pillow with a quick cunning movement. “What did you tell them last night?” she said. “Tell me now, I don’t want any lies!”

“I have no idea what it is you want me to tell you!” I left her tray and went downstairs.

“If I could at least find my notebook,” said Faruk Bey.

“Where was the last place you saw it?”

“In the car. Then Metin took the car, but he didn’t see it.”

“You didn’t see it?” said Nilgün.

They both looked at Metin, who was sitting there like a child who had just been slapped but forbidden to cry: he had bread in his hand, but he sat there just staring at it for a long time,

“Metin, we’re talking to you!” Nilgün shouted.

“I didn’t see your notebook!”

Downstairs, Ismail had lit up another cigarette. I sat down to have my breakfast with the bread he’d left. Ismail and I didn’t talk; we were just looking out the open door, at the garden and the patch of earth where the sparrows walked about. The sun was shining in, burning our helpless hands.

“When are they going to draw the lottery, Ismail?”

“They did it last night!” he said. We heard a long roar. Nevzat’s motorcycle passing by. Then he said, “I should go.”

“Stay,” I said. “Where are you going? When they leave we can talk.” He sat down. I went upstairs.

Faruk Bey had finished his breakfast and was smoking a cigarette. “Be nice to Grandmother now, Recep! We’ll give you a call every now and then. And we’ll come out again for sure before the end of the summer.”

“You are always welcome.”

“And if, God forbid, something should happen, be sure to call. If you need anything … But you’re not used to using the phone, are you?”

“You’re going to the hospital first, aren’t you?” I said. “Before you go, let me give you another tea.”

When I carried up the tea from downstairs, Nilgün and Faruk were chattering away again.

“Did I tell you about the deck of cards theory?” Faruk was saying.

“You did,” said Nilgün. “You also said that your head was like a walnut and that if somebody cracked it open they would see the worms of history crawling around in its folds. Remember, I said that it was crazy. But still I think your stories are entertaining.”

“That’s just it. Stories are good for a laugh but not much else.”

“That’s not true at all,” said Nilgün. “Everything has its cause and effect. Even what happened to me didn’t happen for nothing.”

“But wars, riots, plunder, rapes?”

“None of them happens by chance.”

“Swindlers, plagues, merchants, disputes …”

“You know as well as I do that each of them has a reason.”

“Do I?” Faruk asked. “Seems to me they just make for better or worse yarns and nothing more!”

“I’m feeling a little nauseated,” said Nilgün.

“Let’s go now,” said Metin.

“Why don’t you stay here, Metin?” said Faruk. “You were going swimming. What’ll you do in Istanbul? Why not stay?”

“Because while you two don’t give any thought to where money comes from, I’ve got to earn some!” said Metin. “I’ll be tutoring kids at my aunt’s house all summer long, for two hundred fifty liras an hour. Okay?”

“You frighten me sometimes,” said Faruk.

I went down to the kitchen, trying to think of something that would settle Nilgün’s stomach. Ismail stood up. “I’m going,” he said. “Hasan will come home eventually, won’t he, Recep?”

I considered that question for a moment before saying, “He will come! Wherever he goes, he’ll come back, but don’t leave yet, Ismail, sit down!”

He didn’t sit down. “What are they saying upstairs?” he said. “Should I go up and apologize?”

That took me by surprise, and I thought about it. I started to say,
Sit, Ismail, don’t go, when I heard a familiar noise from upstairs. Madam’s cane pounding on the floor. “Do you remember that?”

We stopped for a moment and looked up. Then Ismail sat down. She rapped a few times on the floor, as though it were Ismail’s head. Then we heard that faint, weak, but tireless old voice.

“Recep, Recep, what’s going on down there?”

I went upstairs.

“There’s nothing wrong, Madam. They’re coming upstairs now,” I said as I was leading her back to her bed. I wondered whether I should take the bags down to the car now and save some time. Finally I grabbed Nilgün’s suitcase and slowly carried it down. I thought that seeing me she might ask why I had brought it down so soon, but at the sight of her stretched out on the couch I realized I had forgotten about her upset stomach. I was blaming myself for not remembering the one thing I meant not to forget, when suddenly she started throwing up. I froze with the suitcase still in my hand as Metin and Faruk just stared in astonishment. Then, without making a sound, Nilgün turned her head to one side: when I saw what was coming out of her mouth I thought of eggs, I don’t know why. I ran back down to the kitchen to find something to soothe her stomach. I was thinking, It’s because, like a fool, I didn’t give her milk this morning, it’s my fault. Then I found myself gazing foolishly at Ismail, who was saying something, until I remembered what was going on above and ran back there. When I got upstairs again, Nilgün was dead. They didn’t say that she had died; I realized it when I saw her, but I didn’t say the word either. We all looked guiltily at her green face and her slack, darkened mouth, her face like that of a young girl who was just trying to relax after we had inconsiderately worn her out. Ten minutes later, Kemal Bey’s pharmacist wife, whom Metin had gone to get in the car, said the word. And she said two others, “cerebral hemorrhage,” which sounded final. Still, for a long time we stared at Nilgün with hope, thinking she might yet get up and start walking.

I
lifted the empty paint can and waited silently for the hedgehog to poke his stupid nose out from inside his spines so I could have a little fun. But he didn’t do it. Must have got wise to me. After I’d waited a little longer, I got bored, so I carefully picked up the hedgehog by one of his spines and held him up in the air. When I suddenly let go, he plopped to the ground on his back, helpless. Feeling the pain now, huh? This dumb animal is really pathetic, I feel sorry for you, hedgehog, but I’ve had enough of you.

It was seven thirty, I’d been hiding here all day, with no entertainment for six hours but this hedgehog I found in the middle of the night. My mother and I would always know them right away from the rustling noise they made, and when you lit a match in front of its eyes in the darkness, it would get startled and freeze there, the fool! You could put a pail over it and keep it captive until morning. They had mostly disappeared now, just this one was left: the last startled hedgehog! But I’ve had enough of you. As I was lighting a cigarette I thought I might set it on fire, not just the hedgehog, but everything around here, the cherry orchards, the last of the olive trees, everything.
It would be a proper farewell to all of you, but I thought, It’s not worth it. I turned the hedgehog upright with my foot. Go on, do whatever you want. I’m just going to go off now with my cigarette, trying to forget how hungry I am.

First, let me gather my stuff together, I said. I’d set down my cigarette pack with seven cigarettes left in it, along with the two combs, my matches, and the paint can next to the stupid hedgehog, but I held on to Faruk’s notebook just for a look, because even if it was of no use to me, they wouldn’t be so suspicious of somebody carrying a notebook, assuming of course they thought it was even worth it to come after me. Before leaving, I said, Let me take one last look at this old spot of mine between the almond and the fig trees, I used to come here when I was little, too, when I was bored at home, bored with everything. I looked for the last time, and I was off.

After I’d crossed the goat path, I said, This time let me take a look from far away at my house and the neighborhood down below. Fine, Dad, good-bye, on the day I come back in triumph—anyway, who knows, you might have read about it in the papers—you’ll understand then how wrongly you treated me; I’m not meant to be a simple barber. Good-bye, Mom: maybe the first thing I’ll do is free you from that stingy lottery dealer. Then I looked at the rich, meaningless walls and roofs of those houses of sinners. I can’t see your house from here, Nilgün; anyway, you’ve probably already called the police; good-bye, for now.

I didn’t mean to stop at the cemetery, my path just took me that way, and as I passed through among the tombstones, I was reading one, when I noticed their names:
GÜL
and
DOĞAN
and
SELÂHATTIN DARVINOĞLU
, it said,
MAY THEY REST IN PEACE
. And suddenly I felt, for some reason, very alone, guilty, and hopeless; I walked on quickly, afraid I might start to cry.

Worried somebody might see, that some jerk would point me out or turn me in or something, I didn’t take the highway on which they race back to Istanbul on Monday morning to cheat one another; instead I went through the orchards and fields. The crows, gathered in
the branches of the sweet cherry and the morello trees, made a guilty exit and flew away as I approached. Dad, did you know that even Atatürk and his sister chased away crows once? Last night I screwed up my courage and went to see what was going on at our house; when I looked in the window, all the lamps were lit and nobody was running around saying, Turn them off, it’s a sin, and my father was sitting there with his head in his hands so you couldn’t tell whether he was crying or muttering to himself. I said to myself, Somebody must have told them what happened, maybe the gendarmes came. When the image of my father like that appeared before my eyes again, I felt sorry for him, I almost began to feel guilty.